Heretofore, when it was desired to produce a finely divided spray of oil based and water based liquid materials, such as insecticides, germicides, air fresheners, shaving lathers, hair sprays, lacquers, paints, waxes, plastic coatings and various type cleaning compositions from a hand spray, it was frequently necessary to pressurize the receptacle containing the liquid material with either freon, carbon dioxide or other type charging materials. Under pressure, such charging materials acted as a carrier for the liquid material to provide a finely divided or atomized spray upon discharge. However, such aerosol bomb devices are expensive to manufacture and require relatively complex manufacturing techniques.
More significantly perhaps, recent medical evidence has indicated that certain carriers, namely freon, have been linked to respiratory diseases, and when combined with ozone, may upon prolonged exposure be harmful to the health of the user. Thus, it is desirable to provide a hand spray apparatus for discharging liquid materials from a closed system in the form of a finely divided spray without the necessity of utilizing an aerosol bomb containing a charging material.
Most devices available for spraying liquid materials from a closed system involve either immersing the entire pumping mechanism into the liquid material or by providing an elongated inlet tube which directly contacts the liquid material. Consequently, such devices may not be readily used interchangeably between oil based materials such as paints, lacquers, hair sprays, waxes and plastic coatings, and water based liquid materials or readily adapted for use in a hand spray. Such usage of oil based materials results in the pumping mechanism becoming clogged, difficult to clean and often inoperative in that the pumping mechanism becomes frozen because of the failure of the relatively long inlet tube to properly drain such materials from the pumping mechanism.